BREWER – A Web site designed to forward the public’s tips about drug dealing and related activity to law enforcement officials has been paying off for Maine law enforcement officials.

According to Detective Sgt. Perry Antone of the Brewer Police Department, information from the Dads and Mad Moms Against Drug Dealers Web site played a role in a Maine Drug Enforcement Agency drug bust at a Brewer motel last Thursday that resulted in five arrests, the seizure of cocaine, heroin, a large quantity of prescription pills, as well as syringes and other drug paraphernalia.

Dads and Mad Moms Against Drug Dealers, or DAMMADD, was founded by Steven Steiner Sr., a Tioga Center, N.Y., businessman who lost his son to an OxyContin-Ecstasy overdose last year. Antone came across the organization and its site while doing some work-related research on the Internet.

The organization, through its Web site, accepts anonymous tips to help law enforcement get drug dealers off the streets. It offers cash rewards ranging from $100 to $1,500 for information leading to an arrest and conviction. The group also accepts tips from people who call on its toll-free hot line.

Steiner formed the organization after his 19-year-old son, Stevie Steiner, died last January from an overdose after partying during Super Bowl weekend. On the Saturday before the game, the younger Steiner and others at a party took Ecstasy and snorted OxyContin, a powerful prescription painkiller also known by its generic name oxycodone. Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, gave Steiner’s program a $50,000 grant to launch its Internet site and related efforts.

On the Web site, established last May, people can leave anonymous tips about drug traffickers, kingpins, manufacturers and others dealing with nearly 30 different kinds of drugs. The group also fields tips about school violence and terrorism.

To date, according to the Web site, the program has received more than 500 tips. The tips so far have resulted in 18 arrests and one conviction.

Within the first 10 working days of becoming a DAMMADD partner agency, the Brewer Police Department has received 16 tips on possible drug activity in Maine communities, Antone said Monday. Because the Brewer department was the first in Maine to join, it has volunteered to forward tips pertaining to activity outside of Brewer to the appropriate law enforcement agencies.

Maine police units that have since joined include the Calais Police Department and the Washington County Sheriff’s Department, according to Antone. For information or to leave a tip, contact Dads and Mad Moms Against Drug Dealers at (866) DAMMADD. The organization’s Web site is: www. dammadd.org.